Top 5 Tips to Surviving Your First Semester at VCU!

Where has the summer gone? It seems like just yesterday I praising the Baby Jesus for the Spring Semester to be donezo for VCU. Before I know it the Fall Semester is upon us and those crazy kids return like a plague of locusts to entertain and delight me as I drive to and fro work on the daily.

You can spot the freshmen pretty easily. First of all they appear to be about 12 years old. Secondly, they’re scared shitless. Being a freshman is hard! You don’t know where to score the decent drugs or where you can buy your underage brewskies. I can’t help them with any of that craziness, but I can help them with equally important tips and tricks to surviving their first semester of college.

1-Hang out at Monroe Park at night! Sometimes you can’t find anything to do at night and you get bored and antsy. If you find yourself alone and it’s after nightfall, may I suggest a stroll around scenic Monroe Park? It’s totally safe and quite lovely this time of year. The hypodermic needles and crack pipes just glisten under the late summer Moon! Cash is King so free to carry any valuables with you as well.

2-Park anywhere you want! Or rather, don’t park anywhere at all! You read that right-just don’t bother parking! Ever! Need to pick up a friend right quick? Drop off a term paper but just don’t want to deal with parking your car? No parking, no problem! Just stop your car in the middle of the road and put on your hazards! Trust me; no one will mind that you’ve backed up traffic for five city blocks! The best time to do this is preferably around 5:15 when all the “grown ups” are getting off of work and are trying to just get the hell home to chill the fuck out fortheloveofgod.

3-Disgregard all street signs and traffic lights as they don’t apply to you! You know how you learned in school that the red hand meant “Don’t Walk” and the white dude meant “Walk”? Well scrap that because those rules no longer apply to you! Is there traffic headed your way but you need to cross the street? No worries! Just get you and fifty of your closest buddies to just walk out in the middle of the road into oncoming traffic. The cars can’t hit all of y’all right?

4-Join a Greek Organization! Meeting new people can be hard and sometimes people like to pay for their friends. If that’s the case then I suggest joining a sorority or fraternity. Greek life is huge at VCU and only the coolest of the cool get in. I know what you’re thinking, “I thought VCU was a bunch of Lil Baby Hipsters/foreign exchange students/weirdos from Northern Virginia?” Wrong! The cool kids are totally rushing-and so should you!

5-Smile! Rams are a notoriously friendly bunch so it’s important to smile and say “hi” to random strangers at much as possible. A lot of times it may seem that they’re trying to block you out by text messaging while walking, listening to their iPod or hiding under that hoodie but underneath is really a friend you have yet to make! Go up to the next person you see and give them a great big ole hug. Trust me-you’ll be glad you did!

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